The first and only warning, before the earth judders around them, is a trickling plume of soil from the ceiling; and apparently that’s enough for her subconscious. By the time the walls rattle, Hel’s already pounced, wrapped around her fellow archaeologist from behind — the smaller, startled figure tucked under her chin as the world rumbles and something, in the direction of buried temple’s entrance, crashes loudly. The coil of festoon lights they’ve been unwinding through the space flickers and goes out.
“Hell,” her colleague says under her, muffled and alarmed. “Hell. Hell.” Shakes her arm. “Hel?”
Oh, she thinks dimly, no, Constance has been yelling at her, not just exclaiming at the situation.
“Alhena,” Doctor Constance Merrow snaps, familiarly crisp after years of chiding Hel for one inadvisable scrape or another, “are you hurt?”
“No,” Hel says numbly. “Are you?”
“I’m fine,” Constance says, and taps firmly on Hel’s arm. “You can let go.”
Hel takes a second to remember how, then unwinds shaky hands, wipes them on her cargo pants, and makes herself shuffle away and cast the soft beam of light from the talisman inscribed on the front of her helmet around.
The temple seems mostly intact, from here, though there’s definitely a lot of dust in the air now. She doesn’t seem to have dislodged the particulate mask over her mouth and nose, thankfully; though the way they came, the ancient entryway they’ve excavated over the past two weeks, is practically invisible for swirling clouds.
She fumbles for her goggles.
“We’d better check the entrance,” she says, hoping she doesn’t sound as apprehensive as she feels; but Constance’s glance back at her is visibly filled with the same doubt: cave-in.
The temple entrance itself is still intact — small mercies — but the closer they get, the nearer visibility gets to zero. It is, sure enough, filled once again with rocks and soil, the festoon cable broken or dislodged somewhere along the length they’d excavated to get in here.
“Well,” Hel says. “Let’s go back further in and sit down for a while. Conserve our energy, let the dust settle.”
She doesn’t say: if there’s no airflow, we have a limited time before our own exhalations make the place an asphyxiating deathtrap. She doesn’t say: the only water we have is in the canteens at our belts. She doesn’t need to; Constance knows these things as well as she does.
“Basecamp will be doing their best to account for everyone already,” Constance says lightly, which is true; neither of them say that there are other, more delicate excavations ongoing, people more at risk, and it might be a while before anyone makes it to this end of the valley to check on them.
“This is a lovely, intact example,” Constance says, after a couple of hours, looking around the inner chamber from their seat on the floor, backs against the wall.
“Must have built it with the quakes in mind,” Hel agrees.
“Inner door’s still in one piece,” Constance says, playing her light over it, and Hel gives her a narrow sideways look. “And the altar.”
“Mmmm,” Hel says suspiciously.
“The altar carvings—”
“Support for Hooper’s hypothesis,” Hel interrupts acidly. “Fertility-cult mystery religion. And you’re about to say oh, those carvings are still legible, I wonder if the enchantments still work, and then pretend you’re not suggesting somebody could unlock the door with ritual altar sex.”
“Well,” Constance says brightly, gaze pointed firmly at the door, and nothing else.
“Assuming the enchantments still work,” Hel says grimly, ignoring the hot, heavy feeling in her stomach, “and assuming the door mechanism is still intact at all, disturbing it might bring the ceiling down, Constance, did you think of that? And it could be flooded back there, or the air could be noxious, or anything.”
“I know,” Constance says, still brightly, and they sit like that for a while, and then Constance says, “when we run out of water—”
“They’re coming to get us out,” Hel says firmly.
“Hel?” Constance says quietly, after a couple more interminable hours, and unobtrusively pats her hand across the stone to find Hel’s and hold onto it.
They’re in the dark for what feels like a long time.
“Hel?” Constance murmurs, and Hel squeezes her hand a little.
“Yes?” she says.
“If you recall,” Constance says quietly, tone reserved and controlled, “I’m not especially fond of — the dark. Underground.”
“Something of the sort, vaguely,” Hel says. She once broke a bottle across a man’s face in a bar for laughing about it behind Constance’s back: the Doctor who’s scared of digs—
“I know the altar’s not a clever plan,” Constance says.
“It’s not that it’s a bad idea,” Hel says, and chews the inside of her cheek in the following silence.
“It is pretty bad,” Constance says, eventually. “But if it’s not because of that—”
“Constance,” Hel says heavily, and buys entire minutes more of silence with it; alas, not more than that.
“Friendships have survived rather worse than a little ritual sex in the name of escaping a buried temple,” Constance says, and Hel can hear her striving for a lightly jovial tone.
“Constance,” she groans, and gropes around with her free hand for a palm-sized rock, which she holds up theatrically in front of her.
“What are you doing,” Constance says.
“Why, I’m browsing hot singles in my area on an app, obviously,” Hel says, and mimes swiping with her thumb. “Why, look! Here’s a blonde archaeologist about my age! My, let’s take a look at her profile—” she mimes scrolling. “Likes: sharply-dressed, sharp-tongued, feminine businesswomen who can hold educated conversations witty and fast-paced enough to spin your head. Wants: a longterm nesting partner who’s nonetheless terribly independent, to put together a lovely place to live together the half of the year she’s not on digs. Absolutely never ever interested in: other historians or archaeologists.” She throws the rock away. “I don’t think,” she says, sharp and defensive, “it’s worth the awkwardness when we get out, to have some sort of a fumble on a cold rock and probably not even get you off because you’re stressed about being stuck in here and I’m not—” and she has to pause, teeth involuntarily clenching, to unstick her jaw; “not even at all your type.”
Constance looks at her, long enough for Hel to blush angrily. “Your first thought is that we shouldn’t because you’re worried about not being good?” she says eventually, low and weird and slightly choked and very fond.
“Well that’s the point!” Hel argues, hastily looking away. “Mystery cult initiation rites aren’t going to unlock their inner chamber for good effort, girls, now are they—” and Constance laughs, still weirdly choked.
“And so,” she intones, “on the altar of the mystery sex cult…they were both bottoms—” and cuts off with a gasp, and Hel involuntarily tightens her grip on Constance’s hand. Hard enough to hurt, probably, though she doesn’t mean to and desperately wishes she could stop herself.
“Both bottoms?” she says, and laughs, dark and wild with years of watching and wanting. “Constance, I could fuck you to tears—”
She cuts herself off far too late, the sentence ringing in the silent temple as Constance wordlessly inhales, sharp and involuntary. Hel lets go of her and tries to pull her hand back.
“Hel,” Constance says, voice tightened ever-so-slightly in the way Hel knows means she’s red in the face, and clutches at her arm.
“I didn’t mean—” Hel says into the dark opposite Constance, strained. “I shouldn’t have said that to you.”
Constance laughs a little, in a breathless way that’s not because anything’s funny, and then she’s silent for a while, and then she says, “Do you think — do you think we could try activating the altar, Hel,” voice small and strange; and Hel could weep.
“Of course,” she says stiffly. “I certainly don’t mean to keep you trapped in here on purpose, Constance; just to say there are risks.”
“I’m aware,” Constance says, still odd-sounding, and tugs on Hel’s hand, a little tentatively, as though Hel might not follow. Hel always has; she always will.
In the centre of the ritual chamber, Constance turns without letting go of Hel’s hand, backing herself into the altar’s stony bulk. “How—” she says, bites her lip, and then with false bravado, “well, Doctor Basma, how do you intend to have your way with me? Bend me over the altar—?” and Hel’s stomach is knotted, she feels unsteady on her feet.
She reaches up and touches Constance’s cheek, and Constance’s breath catches; she shivers. Hel carefully tucks her hair behind her ears, takes her face between Hel’s dig-roughened hands. Constance makes a tiny wide-eyed squeak, and then Hel is gently kissing her.
Have your wicked way with, indeed—
Constance trembles and sighs as Hel kisses her mouth and her face and her neck, running light fingertips up and down her arms in a leisurely way, wandering eventually down her ribs, splaying across her tummy and tracing her hips and resting on her thighs.
“Hel,” Constance breathes, when Hel finally dips fingertips behind the waistband of her practical trousers.
“Yes?” Hel says earnestly, nuzzling just behind her ear.
“Alhena.”
“Oh,” Hel says, hand stilling, and bites her lip hard enough to taste blood. “Oh, you’re — you’re very ready.”
Constance whimpers.
“Maybe the enchantments do still work,” Hel murmurs, feeling half delirious. “Some kind of passive aphrodisiac effect — I’m not even your type—”
“Alhena, be reasonable—” Constance says, and then bonelessly drops her head onto Hel’s shoulder, moaning into her neck, as Hel recovers her wits enough to resume; and it takes very little time before Constance bites her shoulder and shudders convulsively. It’s perfect and terrible; Hel holds her, letting the moment sink into her bones to torture herself with later and for ever, eyes closed.
“Hel,” Constance says weakly, and tugs at her shirt. “Hel.”
“What?” Hel manages to say it evenly enough, though her mouth is dry.
“Look,” Constance says. “The enchantments are still active—” and sure enough, the altar’s carvings are glowing. Nothing else; no mechanisms or movement, the inner door stays closed, but distinctly still-functional effects.
“That’ll show up on the survey thaumograph,” Hel says. “They’ll get here in no time.”
Only another hour later, the basecamp team start digging out the collapsed tunnel, by which time the carvings have nearly faded back to inert. Hel and Constance sit with their backs against the altar, a careful distance apart, and sip the remainder of their water until they’re freed.
“Who activated the altar?” Gerard, the team’s semiotician, says, circling it and scribbling away in his notebook. He doesn’t mean anything by it, but Doctor Carver the geomancer shoots Hel an amused, arch look. They all know what kind of temple it is.
“I did,” Hel says firmly. “Via solo freeform exploratory excitation.”
Which could mean she found an abstract, applied-magic way to trip the enchantments, is somewhat deniable enough to print in a publication, and leaves Constance out of it. Carver looks even more amused.
Gerard pauses, looking at the carvings dubiously, and opens his mouth to make some technical objection.
“Gerard,” Carver says kindly, “if you call her a liar she’s liable to challenge you to pistols at dawn, and I’ve seen her shoot; you don’t want to try her.”
Gerard gives Hel an alarmed look, and goes back to his note-taking in an awkward little rush, and Hel stays and answers questions and helps survey the enchantments and resolutely doesn’t think about Constance, escaped into the open air as soon as the way was open enough.
It’s hours later still when Hel excuses herself, exhausted. She takes herself to her tent, takes one look at its sad half-collapsed state from the quake and sighs. She drags hands over her face, rummages among her tumbled belongings for half a bottle of cheap wine, and wanders out of direct sight of the camp.
Back against a boulder, knees drawn up to her chest, she leans her head back and stares at the stars.
Footsteps climb up after her, after a while.
“You should be resting,” she says, and drinks from the bottle. “Rough day.”
“I thought we might talk about something,” Constance says in a slow, thoughtful way, and Hel looks up at her, sighs, and closes her eyes.
“Look,” she says wearily, “just — be patient with me for a week or so, and we’ll be back to normal in no time.”
“Pass me that rock, would you,” Constance says, and Hel opens her eyes quizzically; Constance points at the ground, apparently sincerely. Hel passes her a fist-sized stone, which Constance hefts thoughtfully.
“Not going to brain me, I hope?” Hel says. It comes out more morose than intended.
“Thought I’d review my profile,” Constance says. “In the app. For hot singles in your area.” She makes a theatrical swiping gesture.
Hel buries her face in the crook of her elbow and groans.
“Hot blonde archaeologist,” Constance pretends to read. “About your age. Nobody in the field, thanks—” she pauses; Hel takes another drink. “You can’t compete with my work wife,” Constance says deliberately, in the middle of it, making her choke. “Let’s play house: must be willing not to miss me half the year while I’m with my work wife. And never want it to be home, because, again, you can’t compete.”
“I’m not your type,” Hel says raggedly, bewildered.
“Alhena,” Constance sighs, and motions for Hel to pass her the bottle, which Hel does reflexively, and watches her tanned throat as Constance takes her turn at swigging from it; and then Constance nudges her with a foot. “Budge a little,” she says, and Hel stretches her legs out, ready to shuffle sideways; unprepared for Constance to step one foot across her and drop to her knees, straddling Hel’s thighs.
“Oh,” Hel says ruefully.
“Quite,” Constance says, looking very directly at her. “Now, if I were to ask a selfish question, such as: how long have you been pining for me—”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Hel says, heartfelt.
